1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a multi-computer node computer for a distributed computer system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a distributed, fault-tolerant real-time computer system consisting of a number of node computers and of a real-time communication system, the node computers must execute the application software and diverse administrative tasks, the “middleware tasks” such as selection of peripherals, message administration, network management, and so on. The many implicit interactions between these tasks, which are but slightly dependent, make it difficult to foresee the time required to execute the application software. The literature see e.g. Anceaume, E., et. Al. (1998). HADES: A Middleware Support for Distributed Safety-Critical Real-Time Applications. Proc. of the 18th Distributed Computer System Conference (DCS 18), IEEE Press. pp. 344–351; Janka, R. (1999). A New Development Framework Based on Efficient Middleware for Real-Time Embedded Heterogenous Multicomputers. Proc. of Engineering of Computer Based Systems (ECBS 99), IEEE Press. pp. 261–268; Kim, K. (1998). ROAFTS: A Middleware Architecture for Real-Time Object Oriented Adaptive Fault Tolerance Support. Proc. of the 3rd International High Assurance System Engineering Symposium, IEEE Press. pp. 50–57 suggests to encapsulate the middleware software in software objects of its own in order to decouple the middleware software from the application software. In the time range, this decoupling is incomplete since one and the same CPU must undertake the temporally imbricated execution of the application software and the middleware software and since additional, undesired dependencies are generated by the common use of resources such as a cache memory of the CPU for example.